Right reporter. Right blog. Priceless.

Is anyone else as big a fan of the various NBC News blogs as I have become? They're all accessible at MSNBC.com, and sometimes they're just priceless.

When you can get skilled journalists -- and their talents as writers and storytellers -- away from formula journalism, away from policy wonkery, away from self-promoting blowhards and political hacks, well, sometimes humanity happens.

Here's part of a dispatch by Bill Dedman from the MSNBC On the Scene blog:

As the thousands drifted away from the candlelight vigil on the Virginia Tech drillfield Tuesday evening, a song rose from a circle of two dozen lights.

"O mothers, let’s go down. Come on down, don't you wanna go down? O mothers, let’s go down. Down in the river to pray..."

A woman in the circle, a generation older than the young men and women, said she had come up from western North Carolina to be with her son, a resident adviser in a dorm, an R.A. just like the first young man killed on Monday. She reached over to give him a hug as they sang on.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..."

The group grew to 30, singing from the heart, tears on many cheeks. They all knew the same songs, the same harmonies.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

Was this an organized group, a church choir? No, she said, "just Christians."

CAN I MOVE to Blacksburg, Va., now?

Sometimes I loathe my generation

His father . . . questioned whether his
son's free speech rights had been violated.

"I would have hoped that state officials
would know their First Amendment better
than they seem to," he said.

READ THIS, and you'll loathe my Boomer generation, too. From The Associated Press:

A University of Colorado student was arrested after making comments that classmates deemed sympathetic toward the gunman blamed for killing 32 students and himself at Virginia Tech, authorities said.

During a class discussion of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, the student "made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people," university police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said.

Several witnesses told investigators the student said he was "angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people," according to a police report. Witnesses "said they were afraid of him and afraid to come to class with him," Wiesley said.

The student, identified by police as Max Karson of Denver, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution. He had a court appearance set for Wednesday afternoon.

His father, Michael Karson, told the Camera newspaper that the comments may have been misinterpreted and questioned whether his son's free speech rights had been violated.

"I would have hoped that state officials would know their First Amendment better than they seem to," he said.

University spokesman Bronson Hilliard said privacy laws prevented him from releasing personal information about the student.

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. Michael Karson's precious baby boy, Max, makes some truly disturbing public statements that indicate he just might be Columbine- or Virginia Tech-massacre nuts.

The boy, it is obvious, needs some kind of help. He needs to be checked out six ways from Sunday. Likely, he needs a psychological overhaul. And the fact of his arrest might, just might, make sure he can get the help he needs before the Angel of Death can make his next move out there in Colorado.

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, as John Belushi (who could have used some help himself) used to say. No, Michael Karson is not thanking God, or his lucky stars . . . or whatever. He is not grateful that someone stood up to stand astride his son's raging dysfunctionality and yell "HELP!"

Michael Karson is decrying this awful abridgment of his baby boy's free-speech rights. What Michael Karson needs is a psychiatrist to bust him across the chops and tell him to shut the hell up.

Would that be a Freudian approach or a Jungian one, perhaps?

Do it.

The constitutional right to be nuts . . .

. . . even if that screws up others' constitutional right to life.

From MSNBC:

Based on emerging accounts of his behavior before his deadly attack at Virginia Tech, Cho [Seung-Hui] exhibited three characteristics that the experts say are common among school shooters:

He didn’t “just snap” but instead acquired the weapons weeks earlier.

He was considered a threat by others, even though he didn’t make any explicit threats.

Fellow students and teachers raised concerns about his behavior.

Cho caused a great deal of concern on the Virginia Tech campus before Monday's mass shooting, even being voluntarily committed to a mental health facility for a day or two in 2005 after he made a second unwanted contact with female students, campus officials said Wednesday. His writings and behavior in class alarmed other students and teachers. His roommates heard him talk of suicide.

But because he didn’t threaten to harm anyone, university officials said, there was little more they could do.

That's been the pattern in most previous school attacks in the U.S., according to a landmark study in 2002 by the U.S. Secret Service. Researchers looked at 37 school shootings and interviewed 10 of the shooters themselves.

In more than three out of four school shootings, the attacker had made no threat against the schoolteachers or students. But most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help. The attackers posed a threat even though they hadn't made a threat.

Schools can do a lot more to deal with such concerns, said one of the authors of the study.

"The notion that a concerned teacher who tries to get someone to counseling and that there are no other options if the student refuses to go — that seems much too limited," one of the report’s co-authors, psychologist Robert A. Fein, told MSNBC.com on Wednesday. He has consulted with federal agencies on targeted violence, including terrorism, school shootings and workplace violence.

"I understand that students in college are not high school kids," Fein said, "but schools should be able to do better than that. This is not to cast blame on anyone. There's no cookie-cutter solution, and there probably are lots of 'right ways,' but the notion of having a team that can gather and examine information and determine 'we may have a problem here' and then work to figure out what to do, or ask others, or keep working on it, still makes sense to me."

Virginia Tech officials described a long chain of events preceding Monday's shooting and expressed frustration that their systems weren't set up to deal with a student like Cho, who had not made a threat or committed a crime. Since his erratic behavior did not cross those thresholds, they said they could do nothing more than recommend he receive counseling.

COULD SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN in what rational world can we not immediately institutionalize -- institutionalize until we're reasonably sure they're no danger to themselves or others -- someone who is such a wack job that he has half the university scared spitless? Like this, as recounted in London's Evening Standard:

The Virginia Tech gunman was taken to a mental health facility in 2005, it has been revealed.

Cho Seung-Hui was evaluated by mental health professionals after female students complained to police about him and his parents became afraid he was suicidal.

Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flincham confirmed moments ago that Cho Seung-Hui had targeted two female students in November and December of 2005.
He made contact with the first woman through phone calls and in person. Though she complained to police, she later declined to press charges, referring to Cho's attentions as "annoying".

The matter was then handled within the university, outside the scope of police.

Cho instant messaged the second woman in December, 2005. She asked police to ensure he had no further contact with her, and police gave Cho a warning regarding the matter.

Later Cho's parents expressed concern to police that he may have been suicidal. They asked him to speak to a counsellor, and a temporary detention order was issued resulting in Cho being sent to a mental health facility independent of the university.

Under a temporary detention order a person can be committed to a mental health facility voluntarily or involuntarily. Mr Flincham said he believed Cho had gone to the facility on December 13, 2005 voluntarily. It is not yet known how long he stayed for, and any further mental health records are subject to privacy laws.

However according to the file seen by police, nothing was recorded that could have prevented Cho from purchasing a gun.

(snip)

Teachers and fellow students at Virginia Tech lived in fear of Cho Seung-Hui in the 18 months before he struck, it was revealed this afternoon.

A lecturer was so frightened by Cho's violent fantasies that she made up a secret codeword so that she could alert security without him knowing.

The alarm she felt on reading plays written by the Virginia Tech gunman was enough for her to contact police and university authorities.

British-born professor Lucinda Roy has revealed that if she had sensed he was about to erupt she was going to mention the name of a dead professor to her assistant - who had been told to call the police.

Students described Cho's descent from campus oddball to chilling loner with a loathing for "rich kids" as he began secretly photographing pupils in class, started going to the gym to "beef up" and had a military-style haircut.

It emerged today that at one stage students were so scared of his behaviour that only seven out of 70 turned up for class, forcing lecturers to give him one-to-one tuition.

One teacher even suggested today he was given A grades because he was so "intimidating and staff wanted to keep him happy".

Nikki Giovanni, who teaches poetry, said she threatened to resign if Cho was not taken out of her class. She said: "I think he liked the idea he was a scary guy. Some people like that. That is how they define themselves. Kids write about murder and suicide all the time. But there was something that made us all pay attention closely.

"Students absolutely would not come into class. They said, 'He is taking photographs of us. We don't know what he is doing. It is very strange'."

British-born professor Lucinda Roy was so concerned about Cho Seung-Hui that she had a secret code word designed to alert security if he became unstable

When she first heard of the killings Professor Giovanni said she immediately thought it would be Cho.

"When they said it was a shooting, I said, 'Okay...' When they said a young Asian, I said, 'For sure'. I knew when it happened that that was who it was.

"There was something mean about this boy. I've taught troubled youngsters, I've taught crazy people. It was the meanness that bothered me. It was a real mean streak."

AFTER CHO STALKED a couple of women and his parents told authorities they feared he was suicidal he was "committed" . . . if being ordered to get outpatient treatment can be called such a thing. Riiiiight. And only after a professor had tried and failed to convince him to seek help -- and was told he couldn't be made to go.

Some students, some parents and some opinion mavens are all up in arms about the two hours between Cho's first murderous outburst and the university warning the student body. Why, they want to know, wasn't the campus shut down? Why, they want to know, didn't campus police and university officials go into full freakout mode at the first 911 call from the Ambler-Johnston dormitory?

Well, for one thing, they were -- from the appearance of things -- working off the entirely reasonable hypothesis that it was an isolated incident, maybe some kind of grudge thing, and that the killer was long gone. That is a reasonable thing for cops to think.

Even nowadays, thinking that what actually happened Monday was even a remotely likely outcome would have been a massive stretch of logic and imagination. University officials acted fairly reasonably, and they got bit in the ass by it . . . to horrific effect.

AND NOW YOU HAVE NUTJOB CONSERVATIVES railing on their AM-radio echo chambers that the horror that occurred could have been stopped if only, if only, half the student body of Virginia Tech had been packing heat. If only scores of Hokies had handguns and concealed-carry permits -- if only the administration of that university had welcomed turning the campus into a literal armed camp -- Cho Seung-Hui would have been turned into Swiss cheese after, oh, the first murder or five.

For the love of God, is it really necessary to have to make a detailed, footnoted case that no, we don't want college kids packing .44s and .22s and 9 millimeters and .357 magnums on campus? Have right-wing, NRA-loving radio blatherers so departed from reality -- so departed from any notion of what a civilized society looks like -- that they seriously think it would be a good thing to turn places like Virginia Tech into the Wild, Wild West?

Is this really the college experience that moms and dads want for their offspring? Do we only get to choose between society-as-armed-camp and Atrocity of the Day?

If this truly is what we've come to as a society, it's over, y'all. I'm outta here.

Point me toward Patmos. Or Lost Cove, Tennessee.

OR, MAYBE WE COULD TRY another tack. Perhaps we could resolve that if a loner student at Fill in the Blank U. looks like a nut, acts like a nut, writes really disturbing things like a nut and scares the bejeezus out of his classmates and professors -- like a nut -- we just go on the assumption that HE'S A NUT and immediately get him intensive treatment.

Before he cracks like a nut, and people die.

Do we get to send Bush to Gitmo now?

From the Washington Whispers blog on USNews.com:

Are We Already Operating in Iran?

He says he was only citing press reports, but Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is drawing attention to claims that American military commandos are operating in Iran, possibly as terrorists targeting buses. "There are some legitimate questions that [Iran] may be concerned about, such as: Is it true ... that American commandos are operating in Iran? It's not an idle question," he says, adding: "I don't know, but I've seen allegations to that effect, and I do know that people are getting killed by acts of terrorism, and if it's not us, then who else could it be?" Brzezinski declined to confide his thoughts on the answer.

(emphasis mine)

IF WHAT'S BEING ALLUDED TO IS TRUE -- and note the "if" here -- what can it mean for us in this War on Terror (TM)?

Does it mean we have to decalre war on ourselves and send George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of their brothers in waterboarding for a dose of their own medicine at Guantanamo Bay? Would that make it a civil war?

Or, alternatively, does than mean the war is over and we lose? Or -- being that we would have, in actuality, defected to the "terror" side -- would that mean that the war is over and we win?

Life -- and war -- was so much simpler in the 1940s when Tojo, Mussolini and Hitler were The Enemy and our president wasn't an Orwellian weasel.

No one has greater love than this . . . .

Words -- my words, or your words, or any words but those of ancient faith -- are utterly useless when faced with the image of an elderly Israeli professor, a Holocaust survivor, throwing himself at a gunman pushing at the classroom door and yelling for his Virginia Tech students to jump to safety from a ledge.

Liviu Librescu was shot to death Monday. On Holocaust Remembrance Day.

From The Jerusalem Post:

As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 33 dead and over two dozen wounded.

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.

Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

Librescu was respected in his field, his son said.

"His work was his life, in a sense," said Joe. "That was a good place for him to practice his research."

The couple immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978. They then moved to Virginia in 1986 for his sabbatical and had stayed since then, Joe told Army Radio.

And from the New York Daily News:

"When he heard the gunfire, he blocked the entrance and got shot through the door," his daughter-in-law Ayala Schmulevich said.

"He realized he had to save the students," she said. "That was the kind of man he was."

The hero educator was beginning a class on solid mechanics when all hell broke loose on the second floor of Norris Hall.

First came the terrifying gunshots from a classroom next door.

"It wasn't like an automatic weapon, but it was a steady 'pow,' 'pow,' 'pow,' 'pow,'" student Richard Mallalieu, 23, told The Washington Post. "We didn't know what to do at first."

The students in the class dropped to the floor and started overturning desks to hide behind as about a dozen shots rang out, he said.

Then the gunfire started coming closer. Librescu, 77, fearlessly braced himself against the door, holding it shut against the gunman in the hall, while students darted to the windows of the second-floor classroom to escape the slaughter, survivors said.

Mallalieu and most of his classmates hung out of the windows and dropped about 10 feet to bushes and grass below - but Librescu stayed behind to hold off the crazed gunman.

Alec Calhoun, 20, said the last thing he saw before he jumped from the window was Librescu, blocking the door against the madman in the hallway.

* * *

Glorified and sanctified be G-d's great name throughout

the world which he has created according to his will.

May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and during

your days, and within the life of the entire house

of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

Response:
May his great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled

and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One,

blessed be he, beyond all the blessings and hymns,

praises and consolations that are ever spoken

in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant PEACE from heaven,

and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates PEACE in his celestial heights,

may he create PEACE for us and for all Israel;

and say, Amen.

Pushing that button, one way or another

Nuclear war (yeah)
Nuclear war (yeah)
Talkin' about (yeah)
Nuclear War (yeah)

It's a motherf****r,
don't you know.
If they push that button,
your ass gotta go.

THE BAND IS YO LA TENGO. The song is "Nuclear War." It's a catchy little thing, a classic call-and-response number, of which the band has cut several versions.

Most charming is the version where the response part is done by a children's chorus. Nothing warms the heart like an aggregation of what must be first graders happily singing "It's a motherf****r . . . ."

The time is a few minutes after 1 a.m., Central time -- just after 2 Eastern. It is Tuesday, April 17, 2007. I'm listening to the radio, via the Internet.

The station is WUVT, 90.7 FM, Blacksburg, Va. The student voice of Virginia Tech, where something truly unspeakable happened Monday morning -- ironically, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

THIRTY-TWO STUDENTS and faculty members lay dead, along with the 24-year-old student from China 23-year-old Korean student who gunned them down. Calmly. Bemusedly. Impassionately. Methodically. Mercilessly.

Why? Because he could, armed with a 9mm, a .22 and enough clips of ammo to do the job . . . and more.

It's a motherf****r,
don't you know.
When he squeeze that trigger,
your ass gotta go.

I GOT NO ANSWERS. None.

No answers as to why some foreign student blew away his (reported) girlfriend, her dorm-floor resident assistant, as much of the rest of the Virginia Tech community as he could . . . and then himself, as police closed in.

I got no answers as to why some students on the campus radio thought it in any way appropriate to play several versions -- one after another -- of a song proclaiming nuclear war to be "a motherf****r" on the public airwaves. I got no answers as to why anyone who wasn't raised by wolves would think it remotely appropriate to play such -- with a giggling introduction, no less -- when classmates and professors lay on morgue shelves and classroom floors remain caked with blood.

I. GOT. NO. ANSWERS.

Once upon a time, the God of Abraham told His people, Israel, to sacrifice the spotless lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood so that the Angel of Death would pass over their dwellings, and their first born would be spared the horrible plague.

Once upon a time, the God of Abraham sent His only begotten Son -- truly and mysteriously one with Himself as part of the Triune Godhead -- to be the spotless Lamb of God, to be executed and then rise from the dead, destroying death itself.

Once upon a time, that meant something. Once upon a time, we could conceive of ourselves as precious enough -- and wretched enough -- to warrant such extraordinary acts by the Creator Himself.

Now we kill with little passion and great efficiency, and we wallow in "motherf****rs" through the night while young victims of yet another American atrocity lay in cold storage. Waiting for grieving parents to carry them home, to bury their hopes and dreams, to bury the future -- the generations that will never be.

The Angel of Death has done little passing over lately.

This is America in these times. We have extraordinary freedom still, which we regularly exploit to unleash great horror upon the land. Maybe we're the Angel of Death.

It's a motherf****r,
don't you know.
The Culture of Death means
your ass gotta go.

Reconstruction may have ended 130 years too soon

From a Sunday column by Louisiana's Gannett capitol bureau chief John Hill, who apparently is dying to ask the $200 billion question: "What's a little casino-license shakedown between friends?"

BATON ROUGE - Former Gov. Edwin Edwards has done enough time in prison.

At 80, EWE is no threat to society.

He's done 52 months in prison, is a model prisoner and has health problems.

Edwards recently wrote a friend, wondering what public support there might be for a presidential commutation to time served, something that would get him out of the Oakdale prison and back with his family, most of whom are congregated in Baton Rouge.
The friend showed the letter to pollster Verne Kennedy, owner of Marketing Research Institute of Pensacola, Fla., who already was planning to conduct a statewide poll for a client. Kennedy, at his own expense, added two questions about Edwards to his statewide poll of 600 voters taken March 29 through April 2.

"Two out of every three says he's done enough time," Kennedy said.

Another interesting finding is that among the five most recent governors, "the guy in prison ranks very high in having gotten things done for the state," Kennedy said.

"Of all the governors since 1972, the imprisoned guy is tied for job approval. That's kind of unusual," said Kennedy, who has polled in all 50 states.

People in Louisiana believe Edwards "has served enough time and should be allowed to live the remaining days he has outside the prison system," Kennedy said.

Former Gov. Dave Treen is among those. Treen has for more than a year said there is no purpose in keeping Edwards behind bars.

Now, in a scientific poll, we know that 58 percent of those polled believe that Edwards has served enough time and should be released. That's close to 2-to-1, more than the 31 percent who think he should serve the rest of the 10 years.

AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE: Having moved away from Louisiana is like watching a family member holding a loaded gun to his head and not being able to do a damned thing to stop him from pulling the trigger. But living in Louisiana is like having your crazy-ass family member holding the loaded gun to YOUR head and not being able to do a damned thing to stop him from pulling the trigger.

Then again, maybe New Orleans ain't so bad

I've always known that Omaha was a deeply segregated city, in that Northern de facto way of committing apartheid. I've also known that Omaha is a prosperous city, if you happen to be of the Caucasian persuasion.

BUT GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY . . . I called up Omaha.com for a glance at the Sunday paper that will be in our driveway in a few hours only to find out that the Third World 'R' Us. If the "us" here in River City happens to be African-American.

The ugly truth is here. From the Omaha World-Herald's lengthy series-opening mainbar:

Omaha is known far and wide as the home of Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men on the planet.

But the Omaha metropolitan area also has another economic distinction: home to one of the poorest black communities you'll find anywhere in America.

Among America's 100 largest metro areas, Omaha has the third-highest black poverty rate.

Worse yet, its percentage of black children in poverty ranks No. 1 in the nation, with nearly six of 10 black kids living below the poverty line.

In fact, only one other U.S. metro area, Minneapolis, has a wider economic disparity between how black and white residents fare.

The endemic poverty in Omaha's black community is catching thousands of children in an all-too-familiar spiral: school failure, poor choices, kids having kids, violence, unemployment and hopelessness.

Amber Franklin is fighting those odds. The teen, who turned 16 on Thursday, hears it from her mom all the time: "Don't end up like me."

Her mom, Latressa Montgomery, got pregnant in high school with the first of seven children. She dropped out of Omaha North High School and later earned a high school equivalency diploma. But that was no ticket to a job that paid what she needed or offered a schedule allowing the single parent to be home nights.

Amber's family has bounced from home to home and relies on food stamps and other public assistance to bolster Latressa's earnings as a child care provider.

Amber sees how tired and stressed out her mother is. She dreams of another path: high school and college diplomas, then a career on stage and money for nice things.

"I just want to do it," she said. "I can't be like my mom, my brothers and my dad, all of them. I want to be more of a model for the younger kids."

But hardship surrounds her.

Cousins her age are pregnant. Three older brothers dropped out of school, and one has a criminal record. None is working, though one is in a job training program.

Amber herself recently served a day of in-school suspension for getting to school late too many mornings. She relies on her mother to drive her to school.

While indeed some children do overcome the odds, studies have traced a link between the economic well-being of children and their outcomes in life. And poor children's struggles ultimately cost us all in the form of social welfare programs, crime, weakened civic institutions and lost economic growth.

"There are tremendous societal costs when kids grow up in poverty," said Alan Berube, who has studied poverty for the nonprofit Brookings Institution. "It sets a lot of things in motion that are pretty hard to reverse later on."

Certainly dire stories and grim statistics about the economic struggles of blacks are not new in Omaha or elsewhere. But even demographers, city officials and some within the black community found the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau surprising - and alarming.

Omaha's black poverty figures are even more dismal than those in New Orleans, where the stark plight of poor blacks in the wake of Hurricane Katrina put a spotlight on troubling national issues of poverty and race.

And the percentage of Omaha's blacks below the poverty line - an income of $20,650 for a family of four - has been rising in recent years.

"This is jaw-dropping," said Chris Rodgers, a black banker who serves on the Douglas County Board.

The new signs of the depth of black Omaha's economic malaise also come at a critical time.

Lawmakers in Lincoln are debating the future of school organization in Omaha, a debate largely driven by lagging achievement of poor children.

And there are several new, unrelated efforts to bring new economic vitality to north Omaha neighborhoods that are home to the vast majority of the city's black residents.

Such efforts - some emanating from city and business leaders and others from the black community - will be trying to succeed where numerous others before have failed to keep kids like Amber from being trapped in poverty's cycle.

So, why Omaha?

While it's sometimes difficult to separate cause from effect, it appears a number of factors are combining to give poverty a strong, multigenerational grip in Omaha's black community.

• Small black middle class -- While their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers were first lured from the segregated South to Omaha during the last century by the promise of good-paying jobs, many educated blacks now are leaving Omaha for opportunity, often in Southern cities with bigger middle-class black populations.

Those migration losses, confirmed by census data, and the struggle of Omaha employers to lure and keep educated blacks have made it difficult for the city to develop the black middle-class neighborhoods, social institutions and cultural environments found in cities with more thriving black communities.

The loss of middle-class blacks leaves Omaha's black community proportionately poorer and deprives youths like Amber of much-needed role models.

• Changing job market -- The unemployment rate among Omaha's blacks has been on the rise and in the latest census data ranks eighth highest in the nation, at more than 17 percent.

Several in north Omaha attribute recent spikes in poverty and unemployment among blacks to the influx of Hispanic workers into the city. The issue has not been studied locally, but some U.S. studies have suggested immigration depresses incomes of native, unskilled workers.

Others point out that if economic conditions for blacks are to improve, blacks need to stop fighting for jobs at the bottom of the wage scale and get the education and skills needed for good-paying jobs.

Compared with other U.S. cities, Omaha proportionally has fewer blacks working in higher-paying professional and management occupations and more working in low-skill labor, service and sales jobs.

According to a World-Herald analysis of census data, if Omaha's black work force were more like the work force for blacks nationally, the city would have hundreds more black teachers, doctors and nurses, accountants, scientists, computer specialists and executives.

While Omaha has more than an average percentage of blacks working in factory jobs, such work is not as plentiful or as well-paying as three decades ago.

• High school, college dropouts -- Gaps in education and training appear to be major barriers to Omaha blacks getting better jobs.

While states and school districts measure dropouts by various methods, two studies that tried to make apples-to-apples comparisons ranked Nebraska among states with the highest school dropout rates for blacks. Both calculated black graduation rates below 50 percent and placed Nebraska in the bottom handful of states nationally.

Omaha Public Schools officials use a measure they say is more accurate and puts their black graduation rate higher, at 65 percent. But they say there's no doubt poverty and school struggles go hand in hand. "Poverty is not an excuse for not learning," said Superintendent John Mackiel, "but it is a factor in not learning."

Omaha also ranks in the bottom third among the U.S. cities in the percentage of its blacks who have four-year college degrees.

And contrary to the national trend, the gap in educational attainment between blacks and whites in Omaha is widening.

According to projections by the Federal Reserve, jobs requiring postsecondary education are expected to grow much faster than those requiring less education - a trend that threatens to leave Amber and her young peers in school today even further behind.

• Single-parent homes -- Among the nation's 100 largest cities, Omaha in 2000 had the 11th-highest percentage of black households headed by a single parent. A teen birthrate for blacks that also ranks among the highest contributes to that ranking.

According to a Harvard study, a household headed by a single parent is almost three times more likely to be below the poverty line than one headed by two parents.

Amber's mom gave up trying to improve her earning potential after juggling college classes, an overnight work shift and care for her kids became too much. "The hardest time of the month is at the end, when you run out of food," she said.

• Racial segregation -- Using the two most common methods of measuring racial isolation, another Harvard study looking at the 100 largest U.S. cities ranked Omaha 40th and 45th in segregation of blacks.

Experts say residential segregation can significantly contribute to poverty. Adults in segregated communities can be cut off from employment centers and lack the social networks that can lead to better-paying jobs.

Black children growing up in poor, segregated neighborhoods are far more likely to attend schools with concentrations of low-achieving children who are at risk of dropping out. Such concentrations in Omaha increased in 1999 with the end of 23 years of mandatory integration busing.

In 2000, about half of poor black children in Omaha lived in a six-square-mile area bounded by 16th, 48th, Cuming and Fort Streets.

To be sure, Omaha's challenge is not unique. Black poverty plagues all major cities.
But although other cities more known for black poverty - New Orleans, St. Louis or Detroit - have many times more poor blacks than Omaha, they also have an even higher multiple of blacks with higher incomes.

The World-Herald's analysis of the latest census poverty data, done in conjunction with the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Center for Public Affairs Research, is believed to be the first comprehensive economic comparison between black Omahans and blacks in other U.S. cities.

That may be a reason the gravity of Omaha's black poverty hasn't been widely appreciated.

Others say the issue has simply been ignored by Omaha's white majority, a lack of concern that they say is rooted in racism.

"It has to do with a profound, profound indifference between the races," said Walter Brooks, a north Omahan who recently retired as a public relations specialist. "Omaha is a rich city, and that's what makes this so much worse."

Cell phones could bee the end of us

"Albert Einstein once said that
if the bees disappeared, 'man would
have only four years of life left' "

I HATE CELL PHONES. At best, they're handy in an emergency or in a pinch on the road.

At worst, they're a distraction, a hazard when driving -- or when you're in the path of distracted phone-yakking drivers -- and a facilitator of collapsing public decorum. They destroy any sense of privacy (or quiet time) we ever had, and they allow work to consume all of our lives, as opposed to just the part between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. (or whatever).

Well, we thought that was the worst about cellular telephones. Scientific studies are beginning to indicate the things might literally be the end of us. Really.

From The Independent in London:

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

SO, IT COULD BE that we're soon going to find out whether we love our gadgets more than we love life itself. How do you text "I'm starving to death" in 1337 5P34K?

Wouldn't it be the most delicious (sorry, poor choice of words) of ironies if the "meek" in the poverty-ridden "undeveloped" world REALLY DO "inherit the earth," because the First World kills itself off for the love of mammon?

And for the dread of being alone with our own thoughts.

On the podcast: Ding, dong, the I-Man's canned

Your Mighty Favog has returned after an Easter break . . . and a bad case of the springtime viral crud, only to be greeted with The Don Imus Outrage (TM).

Yeah, the corporate hacks canned the I-Man after he said one awful thing too many . . . and somebody finally fought back. Hey, the Rutgers women's basketball team couldn't beat Tenneesee, but it sure kicked the crap out of the big-time shock jock.

Isn't it AMAZING how the suits at MSNBC and CBS Radio were shocked, shocked to find out their money machine was saying sexist and racist things to a nationwide audience?

Umm hmmm . . . .

Demeaning African-Americans and women is OK when it sells. It's a moral outrage when the sponsors start to pull out.

Umm hmmm . . . .

OH . . . I'll bet you want to hear about the music, don't you? We have some tasty stuff this week, including one of Revolution 21's patented thematic sets of . . . . Did you see the last post?

Tune in, and let the music begin!

A song so good . . .

. . . YOUR MIGHTY FAVOG builds a set around it in the just-posted Revolution 21 podcast.

Enjoy this 1968 Grand Ole Opry performance of Johnny Cash's 1963 classic "Ring of Fire." Once upon a time, I was a television cameraman, and there are a couple of great shots in this bit of classic '60s TV production.

Well, ONE'S a great shot and the other is pretty basic and unflashy, but the composition is really nice.

What do you think they are?

CBS Radio . . . the new defenders of civility

AH, YES. CBS RADIO, newest defender of civil discourse over the public airwaves. One of CBS Radio's New York stations, Free FM (92.3 WFNY), features a popular talk-show duo, Opie & Anthony (Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia).

BUT OPIE & ANTHONY worked for CBS Radio before (on WNEW-FM), back when it was called Infinity Broadcasting. Like Don Imus, they got themselves fired by the CBS suits. Remember "Sex for Sam"?

Here's some of what that Dynamic Duo was up to in 2002, which garnered the attention of the Federal Communications Commission:

II. BACKGROUND

2. The complainants allege, and Infinity does not
dispute, that Station WNEW(FM) aired the ``Opie & Anthony
Show,'' on August 15, 2002, during which the hosts conducted
a contest entitled ``Sex for Sam'' which involved
participants having sex in ``risky locations'' throughout
New York City, including St. Patrick's Cathedral, a zoo,
Rockefeller Center, the Disney Store, and the FAO Schwarz
toy store. According to the transcript of the broadcast
that Infinity provided to the Enforcement Bureau, the
contest was a competition among five couples who were vying
for the opportunity to accompany station personnel to the
Sam Adams Brewery in Boston, Massachusetts, for a live
broadcast. The object of the contest was for the couples
to earn the most number of points by having sex in as many
of the places specified by the station as possible. Each
couple was accompanied by a station ``spotter,'' who
assigned his couple points based upon the nature of the
location and the activities in which the couple engaged.
For example, two points were awarded for ``a balloon-knot
action,'' and the on-air personalities referred repeatedly
to the accomplishment of achieving those two points for the
``balloon-knot action'' as a ``two-point conversion.''
The station aired the contest over at least a one-hour
period, during which the hosts and the ``spotters'' engaged
in descriptions and discussions of the sexual activities of
five participating couples in a variety of publicly visible
locations.

3. The complainants allege that the broadcast
material contains either obscene and/or indecent references,
that it was intended to titillate, pander to, or shock the
audience, and that the Commission should levy strong
sanctions against Infinity for the station's broadcast of
the subject contest. One complainant submitted a 14-
minute transcript excerpt of the contest portion of the show
and argues that it demonstrates that Station WNEW(FM)'s
program hosts made broadcast references to specific apparent
sexual activity in the Cathedral.

4. The full transcript of the broadcast that Infinity
submitted to the Commission provides the context of this
particular segment and reveals that the hosts of the ``Opie
& Anthony Show'' participated in extended discussions about
sexual activity with the station ``spotters." Of
relevance to the instant complaints, the transcript
indicates that one participating couple engaged in actual or
simulated sexual activity inside St. Patrick's Cathedral
while the program hosts and ``spotter,'' Paul Mercurio,
discussed that activity on the air. The on-air banter and
discussion was a running commentary that continued well
after the sexual activity appears to have ended. Mercurio
described the couple's sexual activity in the Cathedral with
detailed and specific comments. The station also broadcast
dialogue of a confrontation at the Cathedral between a
security or law officer and Mercurio which also included
descriptions of, or references to, sexual activity. The
full transcript also memorializes, among other things, the
commentary of one ``spotter'' describing the sexual activity
of a couple at a zoo and of another spotter observing a
couple preparing for sexual activity in an elevator at
Rockefeller Center when four children entered the
elevator.

5. The Enforcement Bureau sent Infinity a letter of
inquiry on August 22, 2002. In its responses dated
September 20 and October 11, 2002, Infinity acknowledges
that Station WNEW(FM) broadcast the contest in question
during the hours of 3 through 7 p.m. on August 15, 2002, and
aired that broadcast over WNEW(FM) and 12 other affiliated
stations. Infinity also admits that the show's hosts ``at
least made it appear to the listeners that a participating
couple had engaged in some sort of sexual activity in St.
Patrick's Cathedral." Infinity maintains, however, that
the aired material was not obscene and did not contain ``any
description of sexual or excretory activity that would fit
within the Commission's indecency definition.'' Infinity
acknowledges that it found the station's broadcast of the
``Sex for Sam'' program ``fundamentally unacceptable'' and
contrary to its own programming standards. Infinity
represents that, as a result of Station WNEW(FM)'s
broadcast, it immediately cancelled the ``Opie & Anthony
Show'' program and suspended those personnel responsible for
the station's broadcast of the ``Sex for Sam'' contest.

SO . . . if CBS Radio can rehire Opie & Anthony, why not Don Imus when things cool down a bit? Les Moonves can wax poetic about dignity and respect and "the effect language like this has on our young people," but that doesn't make CBS Radio about anything other than the money.

And, remember, the big money today is in programming to our worst vices, not our better instincts.

Also on CBS Radio stations . . . .

We continue our examination of CBS Radio's concern about "the effect language . . . has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society" in the wake of the company's firing of shock-jock Don Imus this afternoon.

FROM THE PLAYLIST of CBS Radio station X-102.3 (WMBX-FM) in West Palm Beach, Fla.:

Mims
This Is Why I'm Hot

Chorus:
This is why I’m hot(x2)
This is why(x2) uh
This is why I’m hot (uh)
This is why I’m hot(x2)
whoo
This is why(x2)
This is why I’m hot

I’m hot coz I’m fly
(fly)
You ain’t coz you’re not (mims)
This is why x2
This is why I’m hot(x2)

Verse 1:

This is why I’m hot
I dont gotta rap
I can sell a mill sell you nothing on the track
I represent New York
I got it on my back
And they say that we lost it
So I’mma bring it back
I love the dirty dirty
Coz niggas show me love
The ladies start to bounce
As soon as I hit the club
But in the Midwest
They love to take it slow
So when I hit the H
I watch you get it on the floor
And if you needed hyphy
I take it to the bay
Frisco to Sac town
They do it eryday
Coppin a Hollywood
As soon as I hit LA
I’m in that low low
I do it the cali way
And when I hit the Chi
People say that I’m fly
They like the way I dress they like (they like my) my attire
move crowds
from side to side
They ask me how I do it and simply I reply

(Chorus)

Verse 2:
This is why I’m hot
Catch me on the block
Every other day
Another bitch another drop
16 bars, 24 pop
44 songs, nigga gimme what you got
I’m in there driving cars
Push them off the lot
I’m into shutting stores down so I can shop
If you need a bird I can get it chopped
Tell ne what you need you know I get ‘em by the flock
I call my hommie black meet me on the ave
I hit wash heights with
the money in the bag
we into big spinners
See my pimping never dragged
Find me with different women that you niggas never had
For those who say
they know me know I’m focused on my cream
Playa you come between you’d better focus on the beam
I keep it so feen the way you see me lean
And when I say I’m hot my nigga this is what I mean

(Chorus)

Verse
3:
This is why I’m hot
Shorty see the drop
Ask me what I paid and I say yeah I paid a ?quap?
And then I hit the switch that take away the top
So chicks around the way they call me cream of the crop
They hop in the car
I tell them all about
We hit the studio they say they like the way I record
I gave you black train and I did you wrong
So everytime I see them and they tell me that’s their song
They say I’m the bomb
They love the way the charm hanging from the neck
And compliments the arm which
compliments the ear then comes the gear
So when I hit the room the shorties stop and stare
Then niggas start to hate rearrange their face
Little do they know I keep them things by waistside
I reply nobody gotta die
Similar to lil wiz coz I got the fire

(Chorus)

Meanwhile, on CBS Radio stations . . . .

EDITOR'S NOTE: Let me apologize up front for the language in this post. I do not approve, but it is as instructive as it is vile. If you are offended by crass language or are of tender years, know that it is bad and read no further.

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

-- Leslie Moonves
CBS President and CEO
on firing Don Imus today

***

FROM THE PLAYLIST of CBS Radio station V-103 (WVEE-FM) in Atlanta:

That's That
Snoop Dogg
(feat. R. Kelly)

[Chorus]

[R. Kelly]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

[Snoop Dogg]
Let's get this party jumpin'
Me and Kel gone get it bumpin'
They humpin'
Like when it's over
We gone all get into somethin'
The Dog is fresh
Southside without a vest
Nothin on my chest
But these ladies up out the Midwest
I must confess
That in the Chi is so blessed
Leaving nothing on my mind
But Doggy, you and safe sex
This ain't a test
You f****** with a cold mess
Meet me in Chicago
Let me get you to this real west
It's real strong
Real fat and real long
Doggies in the building
Holdin' something they can feel up on
And once they get it
Something they can build up on
Take that skinny nigga home
Work that filling till it's gone
Get that home grown
Put that s*** on Daddy long
I know how you ladies do it
T-shirt with no panties on
Let's get this s*** crackin'
Kell and Doggy Dogg in action
If you in here all alone
You might get this dog bone

[Chorus]

[R. Kelly]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

[Snoop Dogg]
Dip low, Six-Four
Hundred spokes and chronic smoke
All these ladies on the floor
Cuz they know what we in here for
Dogg and Kelly came to ball
Get your ass up off the wall
Let that middle wiggle
Now make that s*** fall
Not just one, but all y'all
Move it like you want it all
Let me see you bounce it for me
Work that s*** for Doggy Dogg
You gots to do it
Is that your crew
Bring 'em too
Come here let me take you through it
Then once Kelly get into it
We can get this after party
Poppin' everybody
Got themselves another body
Knockin' out
Without protection though
That's my confession
But at the spot
If you just think
Your gonna listen
You can drop it like it's hot
Hold up
I came to cool out
Lay back and get blown
Maybe Henny, maybe gin
A couple shots of Patron
And if you didn't you missed it
But now it's known
That this cash s***
Kells sing that song

[Chorus]

[R. Kelly]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

So if you think you got the bomb s***
(Holla at a playa) [X3]
And if you lookin' for some good sex
(Holla at a playa) [X3]
Girl if you ever in the 3-1-2
(Holla at a playa) [X3]
And if you're ever in the 2-1-3
(Holla at a playa) [X3]

[Chorus X2]
I pull up, whip low in the Phantom
With the wheels spinnin'
Ladies like
That's that s***
I'm in the back of the club
Blowin' trees
Hands up, head bobbin' like
That's that s***
In the spot where the girls go wild
Dancing titty bar style
I'm like
That's that s***
Snoop Dizzle (Hey)
Your boy Kells (Hey)
Let me hear you say
That's that s***

Oh. Freakin'. PLEASE.

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

-- Leslie Moonves
CBS President and CEO
on firing Don Imus today

* * *

RELATEDLY, I AM SURE Sumner Redstone, chairman of both CBS Corp. and sister corporation Viacom, will order Viacom entities BET and MTV Networks to remove all but the most wholesome rap and hip-hop videos from those networks' programming.

After all, he did order Les Moonves to "do the right thing" in relation to Don Imus and, apparently, ridding the airwaves and cable spectrum of "language like this" is a corporate priority of both companies because of its effect "on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society."

RIIIIIIGHT.

Head buffoon says shut the hell up

From WWL television in New Orleans:

New Orleans Executive Director of Recovery Ed Blakely needs to stick to business and drop his commentary, Mayor Ray Nagin said Thursday.

The mayor said he’d talked to Blakely about interviews he made while out of town regarding the city’s recovery.
Recently, Blakely was quoted in the ‘New York Times’ as saying the city's racial factions were akin to “Shiites and Sunnis,” and later said that newcomers to New Orleans would be impatient with "local buffoons."

IN OTHER WORDS, an unexpected outbreak of truth-telling has really pissed off the buffoon in chief, because the truth is not a pro-administration proposition. And truth-telling about buffoons by Ed Blakely, an employee of the buffoon-administered Chocolate City government, is tantamount to treason.

And even buffoons like Willie Ray Nagin know that treason in service of a functioning civic society is bad . . . for them.

Staging an intervention via the New York Times

This article is the talk of the town in The City That We Forgot. Basically, what has happened is New Orleans' city recovery czar -- wittingly or unwittingly, I can't say -- has staged an intervention for an entire city, if not an entire state.

It's said that the first step toward recovery -- whether you're a drunk or a doper, or whatever your poison be -- is to name the problem, take ownership of the dysfunction. And when you've hit bottom and still can't bring yourself to say "I am a (fill in the blank), and I need help," sometimes it takes somebody -- or somebodies -- to get in your damn face and make you face up to what's killing you.

It looks like -- maybe, just maybe -- that's what Dr. Edward J. Blakely, world-renowned disaster-recovery expert, has just done for the Crescent City. Here are the money grafs from the end of Tuesday's Times piece by Adam Nossiter:

The picture in its entirety is too daunting to be tackled completely. Most acutely, Dr. Blakely has found a polarized racial environment in New Orleans, very different from Oakland, that he says he must work around rather than try to change. Here, race is “the first thing in people’s minds,” said Dr. Blakely, who is black. “It’s a culture of domination rather than participation. So whatever group gets something, they try to dominate the whole turf.”

A second entrenched hurdle is the paper-thin economy. If it is not built up — essentially created wholesale, most promisingly on hopes of redeveloping a downtown medical and bioscience complex here — all of Dr. Blakely’s exercises could be for naught.

“We have an economy entirely made up of T-shirts,” he said in a speech at the University of Sydney this week. “That is our major import and export.”

He sees the moribund economic infrastructure as the result, in part, of the city’s provincialism.

“It’s quite interesting how insular people are here,” Dr. Blakely said. “They don’t know people on Wall Street, they don’t know the big development firms, they’ve not been associated with the kind of urban planning expertise that I take for granted.”

The tone is clipped and California, different from the easygoing drawl of local officials. Dr. Blakely’s skepticism about New Orleans caused a stir last week when he suggested that the city’s prehurricane population levels might have been inflated. He later backed down and apologized after Mayor Nagin disagreed.

Still, the city has a few aces, and Dr. Blakely is banking on them, most notably a “very good” university network of five substantial institutions, and a way of life that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Newcomers, pioneers willing to put up with the city’s present difficulties, could be the salvation of New Orleans and its future, Dr. Blakely suggested. New Orleans now is “a third-world country,” he said.

“If we get some people here, those 100 million new Americans, they’re going to come here without the same attitudes of the locals,” he said. “I think, if we create the right signals, they’re going to come here, and they’re going to say, ‘Who are these buffoons?’ I’m meeting some who are moving here, and they don’t have time for this stuff.”

AS A LOUISIANA NATIVE, I know what Blakely says is sadly true. As someone who's read the news coverage of that benighted city since Hurricane Katrina, you probably suspect it's true, too.

Pray God that New Orleanians recognize the truth when it slaps them in the face, and summon the courage to overcome their ugly reality.

It's all about us

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE between this, courtesy of The Associated Press . . .

DAYTONA BEACH -- No hymnals. No pews. No steeple. No stained glass windows. And no women.

This isn't your grandma's church.

Organizers of the Church For Men say that guys are "bored stiff" in many churches today.

"We try to make it interesting for them. We meet in a gym and we talk about issues that mess men up," said Mike Ellis, 46, the church's founder.

The Church For Men meets one Saturday evening a month, drawing about 70 guys dressed in everything but straight-laced shirts and neckties. The service features a rock band, a shot clock to time the preacher's message and a one-hour in-and-out guarantee.

Ellis' church is part of a national movement to reverse what many Christian pastors and ministers are calling a troubling trend. Studies show that men are less likely than women to show up on Sunday mornings, and the reaction has been an emerging testosterone theology of sorts. Churches nationwide are now reaching out to men.

One study found that the average U.S. adult church congregation is 61 percent female, said David Murrow, author of "Why Men Hate Going To Church." The research shows women are more likely to attend church, Sunday school and small church groups.

"Going to church is perceived as womanly behavior," said Murrow, who is based in Anchorage, Alaska, and travels the country lecturing about the issue. "We don't go to church for the same reason we don't wear pink."

Communication skills, public forms of affection, such as hugs and hand holding, and other "soft skills" make many men feel incompetent in church, Murrow said.

Long church services also cause men to leave the fold, said Ellis, who first got the idea for a man-only church six years ago.

"I have the attention span of a flea," he said. "They say that if you don't get a man's attention in six to eight minutes, you lost them."

To that end, followers at Church For Men meet on a basketball court, a large scoreboard with a time clock ensures the preacher's message is delivered in 15 minutes, and the same rock band that opened for Bad Company and the Georgia Satellites a month ago bangs out a three-song set of hard-rockin' tunes.

. . . AND THIS, courtesy of herchurch.org, the website of Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco:

We are a diverse community, standing firmly within the Christian tradition in order to re-image the divine by claiming her feminine persona in thealogy, liturgy, church structure, art, language, practices, leadership, and acts of justice. Challenging the church’s restricted language of the past, we pay special attention to images and metaphors that attempt to embrace divine fullness and that offer a witness of holy nurture and inclusive justice, both to the church and to the world.

A new form of church is happening at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 678 Portola Drive in San Francisco. Gather at 10:30 AM Sundays for a lively, engaging, thoroughly inclusive and feminist service of worship. Led by Pastor Stacy Boorn, the liturgy features images and metaphors that will enlarge understanding of and connection with the sacred. Music and readings further reflect this commitment to reclaiming the feminine persona of the divine. Come as you are – you’ll find hope, healing, and community. All are welcome at this table! Worship Sunday mornings at 10:30

Our Christian/Lutheran feminist prayers and liturgy reach back into the storehouse of tradition to bring forth names as Mother, Shaddai, Sophia, Womb, Midwife, Shekinah, She Who Is. They do so out of renewed insights into the nature of the Gospel empowered by the risen Christ-Sophia.

Let your relationship with the Divine be opened and expanded.

Our Mother who is within us
we celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come.
Your will be done,
unfolding from the depths within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits
and we let go.
You support us in our power
and we act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us
the empowerment around us
and the celebration among us
now and for ever. Amen

THE DIFFERENCE between these disparate groups of flakes is . . . not much, actually.

You know, if the word "solipsistic" didn't exist, we'd have to invent it so as to adequately describe our present age. And these Left and Right Coast bunches of self-absorbed, chronologically-challenged adolescents are just so indicative of who we are today, and why we're in such deep doo as a people.

Out there in Florida, we have to resort to making church a pseudo sporting event so that men can be bothered to get off their asses, cut off ESPN and worship the Celestial Bobby Knight to a hard-rock beat. One can only wonder whether they replace the sign of peace with a Folding-Chair Fling-Ding.

Or maybe a fart-and-belch break after the horn blows on the "sermon clock." And Doritos and Budweiser for communion -- which might necessitate moving the fart-and-belch break to later in the service.

Gee, maybe if Jesus had been more "hip" and "with it," the people would have let Pilate cut Him loose instead of Barabbas. Of course, that would have defeated the whole plan of salvation, but what the hey . . . .

AND WHAT CAN ONE SAY about the ovary-obsessed goddess worshippers out there on the Bay?

They take the prevailing solipsism a small step beyond only worshipping a God who can entertain them to only worshipping a God who's just like them. Finding the notion of a patriarchal deity repugnant to their navel-gazing, womyn-centric sensibilities -- and not having the courage to do the intellectually honest thing and become Wiccans, athiests or Satanists -- they find it a simple matter to rewrite nearly 6,000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition and scripture into crone-centric, quasi-pagan glop.

Oh well, so long as their deity does not hurt their tender feelings or challenge them to look beyond their own narcissism. That's the New American Way.

And it's how the Evangelical Right and the Reimagining Left are more alike than they'd care to admit.

It's a free country, and the God-belchers and Sophiaholics may do what they please, but "as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Not ourselves.

Hat tip: Mark Shea.

For the lack of gender-feminist sheriff's deputies, girl's initiation into the art of luuuuv is interrupted

I don't understand. Eve Ensler said this was OK.

IT'S WOMYN'S EMPOWERMENT, FOR PITY'S SAKE!!!!!

Haven't these backwoods Southern bumpkins ever read The Vagina Monologues? Heard of V-Day on college campuses everywhere?

Don't they know this teen-age girl and the 23-year old high school teacher are on the cutting edge of cultural evolution, striking a blow against oppression of womyn and for the fondest X-rated fantasies of Beavises and Buttheads across the land?

Haven't these crypto-fascist patriarchal goons heard that f***ing is an entitlement -- even when you're jailbait?

Here is the account of the homophobic oppression from WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, La.:

A 16-year-old Tara High student left a note saying she was running away. She was found leaving a teacher's apartment, according to detectives and they say both teacher and student say they were involved in a sexual relationship. This is all the result of the 16-year-old's father. About a month ago, he found his daughter's journal that detailed the relationship. Then last Wednesday, the girl left a note saying she was running away.

When the girl was found, she was seen leaving the teacher's apartment complex, Jefferson Heights, which is located on Jefferson Highway. Both the student and the teacher were questioned by East Baton Rouge sheriff's officials, and admitted to having a relationship together. The teacher, 23-year-old Jamie Lynn Armstrong, did not teach the girl. Sheriff's officials say Armstrong told them she thought the student was 17 years old, not 16.

In a statement to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, the 16-year-old says she has visited the teacher's apartment several times, during which she and the defendant engaged in oral sexual intercourse during at least three visits. She says when she ran away from home, she spent the night with the teacher. She also says one sexual encounter occurred at the school.